Co-working on Co-working

Co-working on Co-working is a text written within the framework of Notes on Collaboration (2021), a project and a publication, curated by Engy Mohsen and Edited by Mai El Wakil. It is a manifesto that proposes a total remodeling of working-learning-living possibilities. The text attempts to envision co-working being more hospitable, to imagine working next to or with the other, working next to and with the other.

The text was first conceived during 2020, when the world witnessed a global introduction into the concept “Home Office” and where the spaces of learning and working started to perforate the domestic. And so the text came as a response to imagine the future possibilities of creating hybrid spaces, shared with others, that allow for this model to work. On the other hand, it’s a satirical take on the current business model of mainstream “Co-working Spaces”. Which is why the text begins by asking the reader to discard the image that they recall when they read those words altogether and start anew as we create this speculative space in mind.

Co-working on Co-working is an open-source mode of thinking about working-learning-living possibilities whose ethos can be borrowed, adapted and implemented anywhere and everywhere, whether on the ground or on the web.

Maybe when the co-workings co-work,
They could network
To make their knowledge accessible,
To offer different makeups and setups,
Constantly propose and invent new ways of co-working.
Co-working that perforates living,
And living that perforates co-working.
To dedicate time for living,
To dedicate time for working,
To dedicate time for not working.

• Editor: Mai El Wakil
• English copy editor: Jenifer Evans
• Arabic copy editor: Aya Ehab
• Translation (English to Arabic): Hussein El-Hajj, Soheir Ragab El-Sharqawy, Ahmed Fathy Ismail
• Interlocutors: Sherifa Hamid and Ahmed Morsi (Dataland)
• Graphic Design: Youssef Salah and Engy Mohsen
• Drawing by: Omar Kassab